Graveside Meeting
by lampshaded
Summary: Ficlet. Inspired by a cold and rainy early spring.


The wind whispered through the wet grass, breathing cold mist onto his face. His head, laden with with dark curls of over-grown hair, bowed beneath the heavy, steel gray of the low sky. Across the chalky gravel of the road and behind a row of evergreen trees a clear creek quietly complained in its rocky bank. The fresh green of new grass stretched down the slope before him and into the rainy highland vista. His eyes saw none of its beauty; they were fixed unblinkingly on the dark stone at his feet.

The chilly breeze batted the blades of grass against the cold, gritty gravestone as it sat, wet and solid under his fingers. The rough, straight gouges on its face were a poor reminder of the brilliant man that they represented. A name and words, mere symbols, were the only tools of remembrance found at his grave.

Harry tilted his face to the sky and let his heavy eyes close. Gone were his boyish glasses and his school robes. Gone were his knobby knees and too-large hands. Gone was the awkward demeanor of his adolescence. In its place stood a tall man with steady eyes and a compelling stare. His hair had changed naught, refusing to be cut; it was one of his only recognizable features from his childhood.

Heaving a sigh, Harry tugged at his coat, fastening the uppermost button and pulling the worn woolen knit tight. He forced himself to look back at the grave; it was what he was there for. A reminder in exchange for a memory.

With a slow arc, he raised his hand with its fingertips to the sky. The cold rain fell with quiet sighs and collected in his broad palm. He closed his hand into a fist and brought its mate up to match. With a slow tugging motion he pulled the two fists apart, transfiguring the rainwater into a hollow stem of the deepest jade. When he opened his hands a perfect calla lily sat lightly on his callused palms. He silently bent and placed it on the wet grass at the base of the stone. Its powder-white spathe gently rested against the dark granite.

"Impressive," spoke a voice behind him.

Harry rose slowly and without taking his eyes from the stone. He'd known the other man had been behind him for quite some time.

Polished black boots came to a stop beside him, pressing the fresh grass into the dark mud beneath them.

"He wouldn't have been impressed." Harry stated, his voice quiet and calm.

"No," agreed the other man. "He wouldn't have been. But that's not the point."

Harry turned to gaze at his former classmate. Draco Malfoy stared silently down at the gravestone.

Like Harry, he'd grown tall. He was still almost-too-thin much like his mother, with long legs. His hair was still the color of pale straw and hung impeccably straight down his back, caught by a small metal clasp at his nape. He reached out and touched the stone, as Harry had, in traditional wizarding fashion, just to the right of the name.

Harry noticed his other hand hung limp at his side with only the faintest of tremors trembling his ring finger. A dark curse near the end of the war had rendered his left arm useless. Harry could remember walking into a room at Grimmauld and seeing Malfoy try to will it into motion. His arm had been resting on its side, quiescent atop the scratched wood of the table. Beside the curl of its fingers, his wand lie.

It had been then that Harry had realized he'd never paid enough attention to know that Malfoy was left-handed. Harry had watched just long enough to see Malfoy awkwardly pick his wand up with his right hand and hold it as if it were a fork instead of a wand before he ducked out of the doorway. He could remember leaning against the plaster in the darkness of the hall just outside of the room, gripping his own wand tightly and feeling the heaviness of the silence that permeated the atmosphere.

He hadn't seen Malfoy since then.

"It is difficult to think that it has been ten years," Malfoy murmured, dropping his good hand back to his side.

"It is," Harry agreed, watching how Malfoy's long robe brushed droplets from the grass as he turned away from the grave.

Malfoy regarded him with quiet, pale eyes. His face seemed less pointed than it had when they were boys. Under the gray of the sky he looked more like a marble statue, swathed in stiff black wool with shining, living eyes.

Malfoy found whatever he had been searching for in Harry's face. Although the stiff collar of his robe hid most of his neck Harry could see his shoulders relax. As straight as they were, one could never tell that he had lost use of one of his arms.

"Actually, I was hoping to find you here," Malfoy said. Harry blinked.

"Why is that?" he asked. He couldn't think of a single reason why Malfoy would be looking for him.

"I have something for you. He," Malfoy gestured toward the grave. "Would want you to have it."

"What is it?"

"Memories." Malfoy glanced back down to the stone. Harry regarded his pale eyelashes in silence. A songbird trilled in the trees behind them. They were both getting wet in the rain.

"Memories of the war?" He finally asked. Malfoy's gaze slipped back to his face and gave his head a curt shake.

"No. He never bottled those. He left memories of your mother."

Harry's mouth opened in surprise. Malfoy's curved into an amused smile.

"I thought you'd like to have them," He said.

"Why did he keep them?" Harry asked, shoving his cold hands deep into his coat pockets.

"He had some photographs too," Malfoy said, obviously enjoying the other man's surprise. "A couple, taken from an instant muggle camera. They've got quite a few charms on them to prevent fading. I assume she was quite important to him at one point in time."

"She—yeah," Harry managed. He knew so little about his mother that every scrap of information was always an important piece of her, a puzzle that he knew he could never complete.

"Come," Malfoy prompted, laying his good hand on Harry's arm. "I have them in my home; we can warm ourselves by the hearth that they adorn. Let us reminisce over wine instead of rain."

Malfoy stepped over a thick clod of grass toward the apparation point. Harry followed for a moment before turning to gaze once more back at the stone that overlooked the rocky highland and the pale lily that lie peacefully at its base.

With a last respectful nod to the man he'd known, Harry turned and followed.


End file.
